Zach Neto leaves Angels' victory after collision at home plate

Jeff Fletcher, The Orange County Register on May 30, 2026

Published in Baseball

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Los Angeles Angels’ 14-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday afternoon included an anxious moment.

Zach Neto, their shortstop and leadoff hitter, was face down in the dirt around home plate after a collision. The injury took him off the field for the first time this season.

There was no immediate word on the nature or severity of the injury.

Neto was at third with two outs in the seventh inning, when left-hander Ian Seymour chucked a fastball to the backstop. Neto bolted home with a feet-first slide. Seymour collided with him trying to cover the plate. Seymour fell into Neto’s upper back. Neto lay on the field, with his hand on the back of his neck, for a few minutes.

Neto walked off the field, but he then left the game. Until then, he had played every inning of the season at shortstop.

Two innings later, Nick Madrigal – the player who came into the game for Neto – was hit in the face by a pitch, and he also came out of the game.

The injuries cast a shadow over what was an otherwise solid victory, the sixth in the last eight games for the Angels (23-36).

The big blow was delivered by Wade Meckler, who hit a grand slam against Drew Rasmussen in the first inning.

The Angels called up Meckler from Double-A just over a week ago, installing him in left field to replace slumping Josh Lowe. Meckler was known for his ability to put the ball in play and get on base, but not for his power. He’d hit only 21 homers in his entire minor-league career, and none in his first 20 big-league games. He now has two with the Angels, including a three-run homer against Jacob deGrom in his first at-bat of the season.

The Angels kept piling on runs.

Mike Trout hit his 13th homer of the season. Jo Adell hit a three-run homer off the catwalk in the ninth inning, his ninth of the season. Oswald Peraza then hit his seventh of the season. Adell and Peraza hit their homers in a seven-run ninth inning.

Starter Reid Detmers got the victory, allowing three runs in five innings.

His day started with a grueling first. Detmers gave up a leadoff homer to Yandy Diaz – his third homer in the first 10 innings of the series – and then he gave up a single and two walks to load the bases. Detmers escaped the inning with a strikeout and a flyout, but it took him 32 pitches.

Detmers settled in for a few innings after that, but the Rays got him for two more runs in the fifth.

The Angels then turned a 6-3 lead over to the bullpen, with four innings to go.

Right-hander José Fermin created much more drama than the Angels wanted to see when he walked the bottom two hitters in the Rays’ order in the sixth. That forced manager Kurt Suzuki to go to Sam Bachman to face Diaz, representing the tying run. Bachman walked Diaz to load the bases, but he escaped when Adell made a sliding catch of a Jonathan Aranda liner in right field, ending what proved to be the Rays’ final threat.

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